The Destructive Nanomachine
by SaitouMiharu
Summary: While rescuing Eve from a crumbling castle, Sven is knocked unconscious by a large rock, and is forced to swallow a destructive nanomachine. After finding out he's to die in ten days, Sven struggles with the thought of leaving Eve and Train behind.


The Destructive Nanomachine

A Black Cat Fanfic

By Saitou Miharu

7/22/2009

Sven Vollfied struggled to stay awake as he ran after Train. As the castle gave in, stone crumbled from the ceiling and walls, and soon Sven and Train were covered in dust and rubble. He held his eye patch in his right hand, leaving his green right eye uncovered. It burned to use it, and it totally drained him, but it would be worth it if he could make it out alive.

Train turned to him, holding Eve, and asked calmly, "Sven? Are you okay? You're looking pretty pale."

"I'm fine." Sven gasped. His right eye suddenly flared and burned, and he foresaw a large piece of stone, falling and landing on Train, crushing Eve completely. "Train! Outta the way!" He took a hurried step forward and tackled Train to the ground. The gentleman ended up sprawled out on the cold floor.

A good-sized stone, about as big as Sven's silver attaché case, crumbled from the ceiling and landed on his back, knocking the breath out of him. He tried to move, but couldn't; the vision eye had worn him out, and the chunk of stone was too heavy.

Train straightened to his full height, still holding Eve. She looked so fragile; her blond hair hung from her head, and her eyes remained closed. Sven managed a weak smile.

"Get out of here." he gasped, reading Train's thoughts. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Black Cat nodded, somehow understanding, and dashed far away from Sven, honoring his wish to keep Eve safe. Sven closed his eyes, allowing unconsciousness to overtake him, and wondered how he'd ever get out of this one.

A tall man, with silver hair suspended in a ponytail, entered the ruins of the castle and smirked. It didn't take him long to find the fallen man, since he was wearing white amidst the gray of the castle. The silver-haired man took a small, red orb from his bag and put it in the gentleman's mouth.

Getting him to swallow it was easy enough. _Getting an unconscious person to swallow something, _he thought delightedly, _Is much easier than getting a conscious person to do it._

The silver-haired man jumped when he heard the echoing footsteps of the Black Cat. He knew it was him, for he'd been expecting him to come, but he quickly exited the ruins anyway.

Train Heartnet found Sven just as quickly as the other man had. Unaware that someone was watching him, Black Cat pushed the rock away from the gentleman's limp body and picked him up. He left the ruins, his partner dangling under his arm, and his partner's eye patch in his other hand.

Sven didn't immediately open his eyes when he awoke. Instead he lay, listening, as Eve and Train talked about what had happened since the castle incident. He gathered that it'd been a few days since Train went back and saved him, and that Eve had already fully recovered from her injuries.

Finally the gentleman opened his eyes. Part of his line of vision was covered, but he'd long since gotten used to it.

"Train, he's awake." Eve whispered. Tears ran down her face, and Sven felt a stab of guilt for worrying her.

"Hey, man, I thought you'd never wake up!" Train scratched his head and laughed. "Come on, we've been waiting for you to go celebrate rescuing the princess."

Sven smiled. Train seemed somehow more mature when he called Eve "the princess" or "little princess."

"Okay." the gentleman answered. He pushed the sheets from on top of him, only to gasp at what lay beneath. "Where are my clothes?" he managed to croak.

"Your suit had blood on it, so I threw it out." Train replied calmly. "I called Rins and had her go buy something, since none of my stuff or Eve's would fit you."

Sven clutched the end of the giant t-shirt and waved it for emphasis. "What does Rinslet think I am, a water buffalo?" He glanced down at the shorts he was wearing with disgust, and then pointed his index finger at Train. "And _you!_ While I was knocked unconscious because a giant rock landed on me, you were busy using me as a dress-up doll?!"

"Sorta. But let's go eat!" Train groaned. "Without your cooking for three days, Eve and I nearly starved to death. We had to eat instant ramen _every day!"_

Before eating, they went to the plaza to find Sven some more suitable clothes. The gentleman refused to wear the clothes that Rins had gotten for him, and instead walked through the street bare-chested, wearing a pair of Train's pants, which were a little too short in the crotch.

"I thought the rule was 'No shirt, no shoes, no service.'" Sven murmured as they went to check-out. He'd decided to simply buy what he normally wore: a white suit, and a blue button-up shirt.

Black Cat laughed. "That's for restaurants, stupid."

The three ended up eating at a diner, one of the few places Train hadn't been kicked out of before. As soon as they'd sat down at a booth, a waitress came and asked what they wanted. Sven found he was really hungry, and ordered more than he usually did._ It's probably because I've been asleep for three days._

But before the food even reached their table, cold claws gripped Sven's stomach, and horrible pain shot through his body. He rested his chin on the table, wincing in pain, and couldn't even bring himself to answer when Train asked, "Are you okay, Sven?"

"Sven, what's wrong?" Eve asked from beside him.

He turned onto his cheek and looked at her. Her large eyes sparkled with worry, and he could see the confusion on her face. He opened his mouth to speak, but the pain was too great; he couldn't force even a small sound out.

"Train, I think we should take him to a doctor."

"What do you think, Sven?"

The gentleman gasped and nodded.

A close inspection and a few x-rays revealed that Sven had, at some point, swallowed a small nanomachine, which had attached itself to his stomach and was destroying it from the inside.

No one spoke. Finally Train asked, "So what do we do?"

The doctor closed his eyes. "At this point, there's not much we can do. By the looks of it, it's been a few days since the nanomachine was swallowed." He looked Sven in the eye for the first time since they'd arrived. "I'm sorry to say this, Sven, but you only have ten days left."

Sven felt more shock at not being scared than he felt just from hearing those words. It was Eve he feared for; he was the one who had called her human, he was the one who cherished her as a normal person-- who would do that now? She would always have Train, but could he be trusted to protect her?

Eve felt sick. The same thing that flowed throughout her own body was now destroying Sven's. Without saying anything, she pushed the door open and ran outside. She heard Sven shout, "Eve! Wait!" but ignored him and kept running.

She ran along the street, near the plaza, and felt a spark in her heart when she passed the building she first met Sven in front of: a small pharmacy lining the road. She rounded the corner and entered the park, where she'd stabbed Sven through the stomach only an hour after they'd first met.

Eve sat down at the first park bench she saw, where Sven had treated her as a normal person for the first time in her life, and cried.

In a few minutes, she felt a hand on her shoulder, but she still didn't look up. She cried in the stranger's arms until she had nothing left. By the time she finally glanced up at the man sitting beside her, she had a pretty good idea of who it was.

"Here." Sven held out an ice cream cone. "Just like old times, eh?"

Despite everything, Eve managed a smile. She took the cone gingerly in her own hands. "Thank you." she whispered.

They both ate their ice cream in silence, until finally Sven said, "You know, Eve... It's upsetting when people die. But we live with it. We move on." He paused and grinned at her. "You're too smart and talented to give up just because I'm gone."

Eve thought for a second. "Have you ever lost someone, Sven?"

"Yes." Sven said softly. "His name was Lloyd, and apart from being my partner, he was my best friend. When I used to be in the International Bureau of Investigation, we busted up a place and arrested many of the men there. And then, one night..." Sven shuddered slightly at the memory. "One night some henchmen from their organization found me, and captured me. One took a wrench, and bashed my eye in."

"But..." Eve pressed her finger against the gentleman's eye patch. "Even though you wear an eye patch most of the time, you have both eyes."

He smiled. "Yeah. But only the left eye is mine." Sven licked his ice cream cone and continued speaking. "You see, Lloyd had the ability of foresight-- he could see into the future. He was returning home to celebrate his daughter's birthday, and he foresaw my danger. So Lloyd ran to the warehouse they'd taken me to."

Eve nodded silently.

"I yelled at him and told him it was a trap when he came, but he ignored me. I think he already knew." Sven crushed the cone in his hands and tossed it to the pigeons. "He handed me his gun, and told me to shoot when there was an opening. And then the men who'd captured me flooded into the room, all holding guns, and started shooting. He'd already registered for an eye donation, and I got one of the foreseeing eyes." He paused and let out a little sob. "Lloyd died, before my very eyes, to protect me. I managed to walk away alive, but at the cost of my dearest friend." He quietly cried into his hands.

Eve leaned over slowly, and kissed his cheek. He looked up, his visible eye moist, and smiled at her. She smiled back and said, "Thank you. For everything. I owe my life to you and Train, and if you hadn't set me free, I'd still be a mindless killer."

"No." Sven objected. "You never were mindless. You were simply raised in another environment. And I owe you my thanks, for all you've done for me-- without you, my only purpose would be to keep Train in line, and catch enough criminals to make ends meet."

At first they were only talking, but slowly they leaned forward, and soon each had their arms around the other in a tight embrace. "I love you." Eve told Sven.

"I love you, too." Sven felt his face go red, and was grateful that Eve wasn't looking at him. "You and Train are my family."

"And you're my father." Eve said sincerely.

Sven felt another stab of something in his stomach, but this time duller, a different kind of pain. "I'm hungry." he murmured.

Eve and Sven met back up with Train and headed back to the diner from before. Black Cat ordered his usual massive amount of food, and Sven felt a dull shock when he found he was ordering as much as Train was. "I'm going to be this hungry for the next ten days?!" he said aloud.

Train laughed. "Seems like it."

_This is bad..._ Sven thought. _I'm becoming like a monster. No, worse... I'm... I'm becoming... __I have become Train!! _He glanced wearily at Black Cat, who was scarfing down riceballs. _Oh, no..._

The next few days were much the same, to Sven's disappointment. _This is my last week... _he thought the fourth day. _I should go have some fun._

So he convinced Train and Eve to go with him to another city, about eight hours away from the town they were staying in, to visit a festival they were holding there. He knew, somewhere in his mind, that Train still remembered Saya's death that night, with fireworks exploding in the night air above them. But the gentleman managed to shake the feeling away. _Train's a tough guy. He'll be fine._

By the time they'd reached Tulip City, which was in fact filled with tulips, it was already six at night. They parked their car just outside the plaza they were holding the festival in, and split up: Train decided he wanted to catch a criminal to pay for gas, and Eve decided to stay with Sven.

People bustled back and forth across the stretch of sidewalk. Eve held tight to Sven's hand as they made their way through the thick crowd.

"Eve?" Sven whispered, so quiet she could barely hear, "You look scared. Are you alright?"

"There are too many people."

The gentleman smiled. "Claustrophobic, eh?"

"I guess." She scanned the stands lining the street. "Sven, look! There's a festival game over there!" She led him to a cork-shooting stand.

"Cork-shooting?" He glanced down at her. "Have you ever played this before?"

"Of course not. How do you play?"

"You take a gun that fires corks, and try to shoot one of those toys." He pointed to the long shelf of plush toys that lined the back of the stand. "If you knock one over, you get to keep it."

Eve stared up at a plush cat, with wide yellow eyes and a bell necklace like Train's. "Can I play?" she asked Sven.

Sven handed three-hundred yen to the man behind the counter, who then gave Eve a cork gun. She examined it for a whilebefore whispering, "Doesn't this hurt the plushies?"

Sven laughed. "I don't think so." he told her.

She nodded and aimed it at the black cat plush. She fired three times, and hit the mark every time, but the plush refused to fall over. Finally Sven slapped another three-hundred yen on the counter, saying, "Let me try."

"You'll need to reload the cork gun first." The man at the counter put three corks in Sven's hand.

"No thanks." Sven put the corks down on the counter. "Can I use my own gun?"

The man looked surprised, but nodded his consent. "Thanks." said Sven, taking a pistol from his briefcase.

"You can't use a real--" the man shouted, but the gentleman was already firing. He shot two times, one after the other. The stand man looked up from where he'd been cowering to see that the entire shelf had been shot down, and all the plush toys lay on the floor. He quickly gathered the toys and shoved them into the gentleman's arms.

"Wait." Sven put the massive pile of toys on the counter and sorted through them until he found the black cat, which he handed to Eve. Then he said softly, "I purchased three shots." and raised his gun.

The man ducked under the counter and heard a gunshot. After a minute or so, he looked up, only to see a dent in the counter, and the gentleman and little girl walking away.

"What's with all the toys?" Train asked Eve as she put them in the trunk of Sven's car. It was dark now; the fireworks were about to start.

"Sven won the cork-shooting game." Eve said quietly. Black Cat smiled.

The three found a good place to watch the fireworks, near the ocean, so they could see the reflection on the water. "It's always more fun that way." Sven told fireworks started only a few minutes later, but Eve couldn't see over the head of the men and woman around her. "Eve." she heard Sven say softly.

She turned. Sven was squatting beside her. "Climb on my shoulders so you can see better." he murmured.

Eve did as he said without a word; the fireworks took her breath away. Sven gripped her ankles tightly in his hands. "The lights are so pretty." she whispered to the gentleman. He smiled and lowered his head. After a few minutes, Eve said, "Sven?"

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong with Train?"

The gentleman turned and glanced at Black Cat. He hadn't noticed before, but tears were pouring from Train's eyes, and the exploding fireworks reflected off his soaking-wet face. "Train?" Sven whispered.

"Saya... I miss her so much." Train murmured, not looking at Sven. His eyes remained fixed upon the sky. "Death is a horrible thing-- not to the person who dies, but to the people around them. The people who loved them." He stared at the sky a moment longer before looking at Sven. "You're my partner, Sven, and I'll miss you when you're gone."

Sven felt tears forming in his own eyes. "Thanks, Train." He allowed a few wet tears to slip down his face before releasing one of Eve's ankles so as to take the handkerchief from his pocket. But it wasn't there. "That's strange..."

He felt fabric rub against his cheek, wiping away the moisture on his face.

"Eve--"

"This is the handkerchief from when we had ice cream together for the first time. I kept it." She reached down to take his hand and put the handkerchief inside it. He glanced down at it; there was a faint pink stain from when Eve had wiped her mouth with it, over a year ago...

"Sven." Train was staring at the sky again. "I'm really tired... do you mind... if...?" Before the gentleman could say anything, Black Cat collapsed onto the seaside walkway.

"Here, Eve, we'd better take him to the car." Eve climbed down from Sven shoulders and watched as he took Train under his arm. "It's late-- we should hurry and start the drive home."

Eve nodded and followed him to the car. He put Train in the backseat, and Eve sat in the front with him. After an hour or so of silence, she noticed beads of sweat were forming on his cheek. His skin was unusually pale. "Sven? Maybe we should stop?"

"I'm fine." he choked out. A now-familiar pain ceased him, forcing him to focus all his energy on the road. _I wish..._ he thought, _I wish this nanomachine would leave me be..._

He ended up stopping at a hotel only a little over an hour away from Tulip City. After taking Train inside and placing him on one of the two beds, Sven sat down in the recliner and closed his eyes, thinking. Eve sat on the bed across from Train's and asked, "Aren't you going to sleep, Sven? It's midnight already."

"I don't know if I can sleep." he replied. "The pain is too harsh; I can't relax myself at all..." His weary voice trailed off.

"Good night." she murmured. "Sven."

"Sven! Wake up!"

The gentleman opened his left eye, not even bothering to open the covered one. Somehow he'd managed to fall asleep during the night, apparently, because only a few moments ago he'd been resting peacefully. "What is it, Train?"

"It's the little princess-- she's gone!"

Instantly Sven felt more alert. "What?!" He registered from Train's worried expression that he knew almost nothing about it. "We have to go find her!!"

"Let me get my gun." Train said. "Fortunately I brought it to the festival yesterday, so we don't have to drive another seven hours to get it."

"Do you really think you'll need it?" Sven asked, putting his white suit jacket on.

Black Cat shrugged. "It never hurts to be prepared." He swung Hades on his index finger and slipped it into its holster. "Grab your attaché case. It wouldn't be good if you ended up needing it and didn't have it."

"Do you think she'd been kidnapped?" Sven inquired. They were running down to the parking lot, where their small yellow car lay in wait.

"Naw. The princess it too smart for that. Plus, there'd be signs of a struggle if that had happened, right?"

Sven nodded. "I guess you're right."

Soon they were tearing down the road in Sven's car, breaking the speed limit by just over fifteen miles, searching for the most likely place Eve would've gone: a library, or even a bookstore. Somewhere she could go to submerge herself in knowledge.

"There's one!" Train shouted suddenly. "Here, change to the left lane! You're gonna miss it!"

"I don't see a library." Sven murmured, but he switched lanes anyway. After another mile they were parked in front of a small public library. "How did you see that from so far away?"

"My eyesight is well over twenty-twenty, you know." Train answered as he led the way into the tiny building.

They found Eve almost immediately, in the science section of the library, completely enveloped in a very thick volume. She didn't even look up at them when they approached. It was as if she couldn't see them. Tears developed in her eyes.

"Princess?" Black Cat finally said aloud. "Hello? Hey, why are you crying?"

Eve finally glanced up at them. "Sven..." she whispered, "I found it. I know how to save you. You don't have to face death."

The gentleman's eyes narrowed slightly, although only one was visible. "Eve, what are you talking about?"

She held up the book in her hands so they could see the title-- _the Complete History and Research Results Collection on: Nanomachines. _"I've figured it out, Sven. We can save you. Do you remember when I used my nanomachines to destroy Creed's?"

Train answered for him. "Yeah, of course we do."

"I think I can do the same thing with you, Sven. I can destroy the nanomachine that attached itself to you, and save you."

"All right!" Black Cat shouted. "Sven, this is great!"

But the gentleman didn't hear him. He dropped to his knees in front of Eve, so he was just shorter than her, and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you, Eve. I'm glad you care about me, but you shouldn't have run away."

She smiled at him. "It was worth it." she said.

The gentleman was unbuttoning his navy blue shirt when Eve added, "It may be a little painful. Creed screamed when I destroyed his, but... that may have just been because he was so angry. He really wanted to be immortal."

Sven nodded, but felt a pang of dread anyway. _If it really does hurt, will I survive?_ He swallowed angrily and dismissed the thought. _Of course I will. I need to have more confidence in Eve's abilities._

When Sven had shed to only his pants and socks, he lay down on one of the hotel room'sbeds and closed his eyes. "Why did I have to take my shirt off?"

"Since the nanomachine is implanted in your stomach, it'll be easier to merge myself with you if you're not wearing anything on top of it." Eve explained. "When I destroyed Creed's nanomachines, I had to break the barrier of his jacket, and it wasted time. I want the least amount of pain possible inflicted on you."

The gentleman did his best to relax. Train sat in a chair beside him. "Wanna hold my hand?" he joked.

"No, thanks." Sven answered. He wasn't in the mood to get temperamental.

"I'm about to start." Eve told him. "Are you ready?"

He winced involuntarily. "Yes."

Eve raised the long strands of her hair and touched the tips to Sven's bare chest. At first he couldn't feel anything, just a kind of tickling sensation, but the quiet slowly gave way to a horrible, excruciating stab of pain that ran through his entire body. "Eve...!" he gasped.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asked. She appeared very concentrated, and her eyes remained closed.

"No... keep going." Sven managed to croak. He endured for another few seconds, and just when he thought he was going to die after all, the window behind him shattered, and a silver-haired man did a front flip onto the foot of the bed.

"Hey, what're you--" Train shouted, but the silver-haired man pulled the trigger on his gun. For a moment it gathered energy, a creepy glow floating in the air around it, and then, just as suddenly as its owner had shattered the window, the gun released an electrical charge, which Black Cat barely managed to dodge.

"You can't escape." the man whispered eerily, jumping from the bed onto the ground. He fired the strange gun again, this time managing to hit Train. He screamed as the static charge flowed through him, and finally he fell to the ground, panting.

"My name is Tetsuya." the silver-haired man announced, "But you can call me Tetsu." He pointed the gun in Eve's direction and smiled. "You're next, little girl. I won't allow you to tamper with my experiment."

He pulled the trigger, and the gun fired again, but it didn't hit Eve. Sven fell to the ground as Train just had, having been shot by the railgun, and sprawled out onto his stomach. He groaned weakly.

"It seems the host of my experimental nanomachine has gained independence of some sort." Tetsu murmured amusedly. He knelt in front of Sven and whispered, "Is that right, Sven Vollfied?"

"He is not an experiment for you to toy around with!" Train shouted, standing up. "He is a person, just like you and me. Although I'm not sure how much humanity there is left in you, Tetsuya."

Tetsu opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Sven's fist flared forward and slammed itself into his mouth. A loud cracking sound echoed in the room and lingered.

Sven grunted and managed to stand up. "For me and Train, it's too late to rejoin society as normal people. It's not too late for you, Tetsuya. Leave and let us be."

The silver-haired man spat blood onto the ground. "Don't be so sure, Vollfied. I'm trying to atone for my past sins by creating the ultimate nanomachine, and you're my first chosen host. A sweeper, with no worries or obligation-- perfect for the experiment."

Sven punched him again, though not nearly as forcefully as before. Tetsu fell to the floor anyway, blood running from his lip. "No worries or obligation?!" Sven hissed. "_Don't be so sure, Tetsuya._" He lifted the man from the floor by his collar and glared at him.

"Put him down, Sven, I'll handle this." Black Cat fell in step behind Sven. "You lie down and let the princess return you to normal."

"No." The gentleman glared into Tetsu's blue-green eyes. "How can you think that killing people is atoning for your sins? How can you believe that?"

"The man I'm doing it for..." Tetsu whispered. "I killed his family. Every one of them, I killed. I owe him, and thus am atoning for my sins by creating nanomachines for him."

This time Black Cat, not Sven, punched Tetsuya. "What does he want the destroying nanomachine for?" A pause. _"Answer me!!"_

"He wants to create the ultimate world by wiping out anyone he sees as 'unworthy.'" Tetsu looked away. "But I need to perfect it, so I decided to test it."

"On Sven?" Eve knelt in front of Tetsu. "We can't kill you-- that wouldn't be right. But you can't be allowed to retain this dangerous information." Once again her long blond locks lifted, attaching themselves to Tetsuya this time.

"What-- what are you doing?!" he gasped.

"I'm erasing all of your memories of this 'destroying nanomachine.' And, at the same time, searching for anything on the cure."

"Stop!" Tetsuya screamed. "Stop!!"

Soon Eve had finished her work, and fell, unconscious, onto the floor next to Tetsu. Sven lifted her in his arms and placed her in the bed. "Using her nanomachines this much must really wipe her out."

Train smiled. "Yeah, she'll have to help you when she wakes up." He glanced at Tetsuya. "I wonder what we should do with this guy...?"

But Sven wasn't listening. He looked down at Eve, her eyes closed and her face pale, and smiled.

It turned out that Tetsuya Orlandi had a rather large bounty on his head, for serial murdering, and Train and Sven were rewarded with a rather large sum of ten billion yen.

They had paid most of their debts and were living in style when one day Eve commented, "It's good that we were able to save Sven, and delete the online files for the destructive nanomachine."

Train laughed. "You're right. Who knew nanomachines could be counteracted by consuming a large amount of alcohol?"

Sven, who was still dizzy from his visit to the local tavern the night before, groaned softly. "Thanks, Eve." he managed to whisper.

She smiled. "Any time."

"It's also a pretty good feeling, saving so many people from a horrible fate." Black Cat said.

The gentleman looked up at him from the sofa he was sitting on. "You know you did the exact same thing when you defeated Creed and the Apostles of the Stars, right?"

"Really?" Black Cat looked out the window absentmindedly. "I didn't notice."


End file.
